Reality TV–Taking The Reality Out of Bad Behavior?

The “reality television shows”…The Real Housewives [of just about every city, county, state or jurisdiction known-to-God], The Real World, Basketball Wives, Bad Girls Club,The Hills/The City, College Hill (I know y’all remember it!), and The Apprentice [just to name a few] are quite entertaining and clearly the farthest thing from REALITY, yet we can’t seem to peel ourselves from the TV screen.

The Real Housewives of Atlanta

The Basketball Wives

The Real Housewives of New Jersey

The Cast of The Hills

But unfortunately for us, too much of a good [or more-so an entertaining] thing is badfor us, not to mention that it is affecting our everyday behavior and interaction with one another. People watch these reality TV shows and see these violent, outrageous, and expletive-filled arguments and begin to internalize this type of behavior, and even think that it is okay to emulate this type of behavior in real life, on a day-to-day basis. According to The Chicago Sun-Times “People can be seduced into thinking that’s the most common way of reacting to life, when it’s not,”, explains Roderick Hart, the Professor of Communication Studies and Government at the University of Texas-Austin.

I know we ALL remember Evelyn from Basketball Housewives…

And this moment on The Housewives of Atlanta speaks for itself…

[And PSA to my men out there: We don’t ALL act that way…]

Think that America hasn’t been affected?…Think again. For example, President Barack Obama has been criticized time-and-time AGAIN for being cool, calm, and collected under pressure. Why should he have to want to curse, or beat someone’s ass when under pressure?–Because the media has deemed that to be normal? Because he’s black and we’re “supposed to be violent” and unable to hold our composure under pressure?– It has gone so far that he is recently been deemed No Drama Obama and according to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, his approval rating have decreased by almost half.

Reality TV is not only causing people to become overreactive [and perhaps a little more ignant, yes…I said ignant, it’s worse than ignornant!] but also more attention-grabbing.

Tell me how you feel GradeA Readers, has reality tv affected you?

Is reality TV creating a generation who is going to be subconsciously trained to be overly rude and mean to one another, Or is this all a BIG coincidence?